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Updated: May 8, 2026

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) Task: A Simple Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate False Memories in the Laboratory
Published on: January 31, 2017
Misconceptions are "so yesterday!"
April Cordero Maskiewicz1, Jennifer Evarts Lineback
1Biology Department, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA 92106, USA. AprilMaskiewicz@pointloma.edu
Abstract:
At the close of the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research conference in July 2012, one of the organizers made the comment: "Misconceptions are so yesterday." Within the community of learning sciences, misconceptions are yesterday's news, because the term has been aligned with eradication and/or replacement of conceptions, and our knowledge about how people learn has progressed past this idea. This essay provides an overview of the discussion within the learning sciences community surrounding the term "misconceptions" and how the education community's thinking has evolved with respect to students' conceptions. Using examples of students' incorrect ideas about evolution and ecology, we show that students' naïve ideas can provide the resources from which to build scientific understanding. We conclude by advocating that biology education researchers use one or more appropriate alternatives in place of the term misconception whenever possible.
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